Parables in Times of Moral Conflict: How to Persuade Your Neighbour as Yourself

Why do our most important moral debates seem to go so badly?Sometimes, of course, trolls or manipulative influencers undermine good-faith conversations--where people get 'destroyed' on TikTok and 'schooled' on Instagram--but often these debates go badly for a more mundane reason: they are hard work and it takes practice to get good at them.Part I relays the bad news about these fights: the old peace plans will not help us.They tried to solve disagreements by getting emotions, ideology, or God out of the picture; such strategies have often been a cure worse than the disease.John Perry demonstrates why our previous attempts to make peace in the face of modern pluralism have not helped, and shows how we can get better through practice.This is the good news of Part II: Perry uncovers a canon of 'parables'--thought experiments or analogies--that can help humanize and rationalize our discussions before our violent passions take over.Some of these parables are well-known, like Philippa Foot's